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About the Book

First published in 1972, this fully revised edition was originally published in 1991 and provides a classic study of humanity’s capacity for evil.

The human species is capable of the most appalling cruelty. Why is this and where does our capacity for such destructiveness come from? In Human Destructiveness, Anthony Storr explores these important questions.

In seeking to shed light on such brutal phenomena as genocide, racial conflict and other large-scale manifestations of violence, he cautions against easy extrapolations from individual behaviour to the behaviour of groups and nations, though he offers illuminating discussions of aggressive personality disorders, sadomasochism and the mechanisms of paranoid delusion. Most provocatively, he locates the propensity for mass outbreaks of cruelty in the imagination: ‘to be able to see fellow human beings as wholly evil requires an imaginative capacity not found in other species.’

Combining wide scholarship, humane intelligence and a graceful style, Human Destructiveness provides an illuminating study of some of the darkest corners of the human psyche.

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About the Series

Psychology Revivals is a new initiative aiming to re-issue a wealth of academic works which have long been unavailable. Encompassing a vast range from across the Behavioural Sciences, Psychology Revivals draws upon a distinguished catalogue of imprints and authors associated with Routledge and Psychology Press, restoring to print books by some of the most influential scholars of the last 120 years.

If you are interested in Revivals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, please visit www.routledge.com/books/series/REVIVALS/